Situational Update
Marc Rood from the Jewish Insider reports that the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said on Tuesday that the Iranian government has both provoked and provided funding for protests in the U.S. over the war in Gaza, suggesting that connections between U.S.-based demonstrators and the Iranian regime and its affiliates go deeper than previously believed.
The IDF has dropped leaflets this morning calling on “everyone in Gaza City” to evacuate and head south toward shelters in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told the Knesset on Wednesday that 60 percent of Hamas terror operatives have been killed after nine months of war in the Gaza Strip, adding that the military has eliminated most of the terror group’s 24 battalions.
According to the Times of Israel, the IDF launched a new operation early Monday morning in southern neighborhoods of Gaza City, following what it said was intelligence of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad infrastructure and terror operatives in the area. In a statement on Monday morning, the military said it was also operating at UNRWA’s headquarters, located near the Rimal neighborhood, where the IDF previously found significant Hamas tunnel infrastructure and killed and captured numerous gunmen.
Per i24 News (and Israeli media outlet): The head of the Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, and Mossad chief David Barnea headed to Qatar on Tuesday for further talks on a ceasefire deal, i24NEWS learned. The arrival of the top Israeli security officials represents serious progress the ceasefire negotiations.
A man and a woman were killed by a Hezbollah rocket attack near the Nafah Junction in the Golan Heights on Tuesday. Noa and Nir Baranes, both 46 years old — leave behind two sons and one daughter. Since October 7, 250 Israeli children have had at least one parent killed, and nearly two dozen have had both parents killed.
The Numbers
Casualties
1,627 Israelis dead, including 681 IDF soldiers (325 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza) – an increase of 1 from our last update
Sgt. First Class Tal Lahat, 21 was killed by a sniper during fighting in Gaza City
Additional Information (according to the IDF):
2,115 IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 401 who have been severely injured.
4,137 IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 616 who have been severely injured.
Note: we have always included the number of casualties in Gaza, as reported by the Gaza Health Ministry. We feel it is important to include this information with the caveat that this reporting ministry is not a trusted source of data by many. Most recently, The United Nations has begun citing a much lower death toll for women and children in Gaza, acknowledging that it has incomplete information about many of the people killed during Israel’s military offensive in the territory.
According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 38,193 people have been killed in Gaza, and 87,903 have been injured during the war.
We also encourage you to read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
The Associated Press, an outlet with a demonstrated anti-Israel bias, conducted an analysis of alleged Gaza death tolls released by the Hamas-controlled "Gaza Health Ministry." The analysis found that "9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data" and that "an additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates."
Hostages (no change from Sunday)
A video of showing hostage Daniella Gilboa, a soldier taken captive on October 7, was released with permission of her family, 6 months after it was filmed in the latest Hamas psychological terror. Daniella is an Israeli soldier who was kidnapped from the Nahal Oz base.
On October 7th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
During the ceasefire deal in November, 112 hostages were released.
A total of 7 hostages have been rescued and the remains of 19 others have been recovered. Tragically, 3 have been mistakenly killed by the IDF, and 1 was killed during an IDF attempt to rescue him.
This leaves an estimated 116 hostages still theoretically in Gaza, with somewhere between (assumed) 35-43 deceased. Thus, at most, 85 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
According to an article published in the WSJ, “Of the approximately 250 hostages taken in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, 116 continue to be held captive, including many believed to be dead. Mediators in the hostage talks and a U.S. official familiar with the latest U.S. intelligence said the number of those hostages still alive could be as low as 50.”
That assessment, based in part on Israeli intelligence, would mean 66 of those still held hostage could be dead, 25 more than Israel has publicly acknowledged.
Link: Families of Hostages in Gaza Are Desperate for News but Dread a Phone Call | WSJ
(Sources: JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, and the Times of Israel)
Listen
[PODCAST] Call Me Back with Dan Senor: A Hostage Deal — with Haviv Rettig Gur & Nadav Eyal
How close is Israel to reaching a hostage deal with Hamas and – with that – a temporary ceasefire that could possibly become a permanent ceasefire? And why does this negotiations process have direct implications for Israel’s Northern border, between Hezbollah and Israel? Could a Gaza ceasefire result in a de-escalation on Israel’s Northern border?
To help us understand what’s going on here, we have two guests today:
Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediot. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.
Haviv Rettig-Gur has been a regular presence on this podcast since October 8. He is a senior political analyst for the Times of Israel, and has been an important interpreter for Western audiences of how to understand this conflict in broader historical terms.
What We Are Reading
How Hezbollah is trying to counter Israel's high-tech surveillance by Maya Gebeily and Laila Bassam in Reuters
Coded messages. Landline phones. Pagers. Following the killing of senior commanders in targeted Israeli airstrikes, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, has been using some low-tech strategies to try to evade its foe's sophisticated surveillance technology, informed sources told Reuters.
It has also been using its own tech – drones – to study and attack Israel's intelligence gathering capabilities in what Hezbollah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has described as a strategy of "blinding" Israel.
Cell phones, which can be used to track a user's location, have been banned from the battlefield in favour of more old-fashioned communication means, including pagers and couriers who deliver verbal messages in person, two of the sources said.
Hezbollah has also been using a private, fixed-line telecommunications network dating back to the early 2000s, three sources said. In case conversations are overheard, code words are used for weapons and meeting sites, according to another source familiar with the group's logistics. These are updated nearly daily and delivered to units via couriers, the source said.
On Nov. 22, a woman from south Lebanon received a call on her cell phone from a person claiming to be a local official, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the incident. Speaking in flawless Arabic, the caller asked whether the family was home, the sources said. No, the woman replied, explaining they had travelled to eastern Lebanon. Minutes later, a missile slammed into the woman's home in the village of Beit Yahoun, killing five Hezbollah fighters including Abbas Raad, the son of a senior Hezbollah lawmaker and a Radwan member, the sources said.
Hezbollah has also taken steps to secure its private telephone network following a suspected breach by Israel, according to a former Lebanese security official and two other sources familiar with Hezbollah's operations. The vast network, allegedly financed by Iran, was set up around two decades ago with fibre optic cables extending from Hezbollah's strongholds in Beirut's southern suburbs to towns in south Lebanon and east into the Bekaa Valley, according to government officials at the time.
Link: How Hezbollah is trying to counter Israel's high-tech surveillance
As fears mount of an Israel-Lebanon war, Hezbollah’s arsenal looms large: The Lebanese militant group has guided and unguided rockets, antitank artillery, and ballistic and anti-ship missiles, as well as drones equipped with explosives. By Mohamad El Chamaa and Samuel Granados for The Washington Post
The group’s arsenal includes guided and unguided rockets, antitank artillery, ballistic and anti-ship missiles, as well as explosives-laden drones — portending a complex, multi-front conflict that could reach far into Israeli territory.
Analysts estimate Hezbollah has between 130,000 and 150,000 rockets and missiles, more than four times as many as its ally Hamas was believed to have stockpiled before the war in Gaza. And the Lebanese group says it commands more than 100,000 soldiers, well over double the high-end estimates of Hamas’s prewar fighting force.
In early June, in response to the killing of a senior commander, Hezbollah lobbed 150 rockets and 30 drones in a single barrage, the largest such attack on Israel from the north. On Thursday, after another Israeli airstrike on a Hezbollah commander, the group upped the ante again, firing more than 200 rockets. In an all-out war, these so-called “saturation attacks” — in which hundreds of small rockets are launched at the same time — could overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome.
Link: As fears mount of an Israel-Lebanon war, Hezbollah’s arsenal looms large
Impending Gaza deal: Is Israel ready to make painful concessions?, by Jacob Nagel in Foundation in Defense of Democracies
My main argument is that we may be getting closer to a deal mainly due to the success of the heavy military activity in Rafah and the southern Gaza Strip, in parallel with the sequence of activities in northern and central Gaza.
The continuous military pressure leads to chaos among the remaining Hamas terrorists and a desperate desire for a ceasefire and a deal at any cost by most of the remaining Hamas forces that have lost their military structure. There is no doubt that this desperate desire for a deal reaches Sinwar’s ears even in the deep tunnels in which he hides, alongside some of the hostages.
If there is a chance to reach a deal that Israel can accept, it is only by increasing the military pressure, not by reducing it. A logical argument being raised is that if Hamas’ situation is so desperate, this is not the time for a deal but for pressing the pedal. This is a correct assumption, but the hostages’ situation after nine months, combined with the families’ pressure, apparently does not allow such an approach. But as long as Sinwar is convinced that he will achieve his full goals without concessions, and unfortunately, many in Israel and around the world are helping him reach this conclusion, there will be no deal that Israel can agree to.
Along with some painful concessions and acceptance of some of Hamas’ demands, the main demand must be the full release of all the hostages and bodies at the outset. Failure to meet this demand, which is apparently and unfortunately unattainable, raises a great danger for the chance of releasing the last group of hostages unless Israel reserves enough leverage and bargaining chips for the future.
To release the hostages, Israel will have to give up some of its achievements so far, and it is important to decide what Israel can give up. To the best of my assessment, it should be forbidden to relinquish control of the Philadelphi corridor until all the crossing tunnels between Rafah and Egypt are exposed and destroyed, and Hamas or other hostile forces should be forbidden from entering the security zone alongside the perimeter.
Israel must retain, looking forward to the next negotiation phase and the “day after,” the capability to have full security control in Gaza and full freedom of action, entering and staying deep in the territory to immediately deal with any terror threats and attempts to rebuild Hamas’ capabilities that will threaten Israeli communities.
To return the Israeli residents safely to their homes in the northern communities, a wider war against Hezbollah will probably be postponed under a southern deal, and it will enable the IDF to arrive more prepared. Reaching an agreement that Hamas will accept might enable Hassan Nasrallah (the Secretary-General of Hezbollah) to declare “victory” while helping his “Hamas brothers” and postpone the war in the north, even if Nasrallah will have to compromise on removing his forces from the border.
An American/Israeli/Saudi agreement, including an important normalization, the US November elections, the economic challenges, and Israel’s internal struggles and disagreements, must now be pushed aside. Israel must concentrate on completing its mission in Gaza and maybe reach a deal that will bring back home the hostages, but not at any price, strive for a solution in the north, even temporarily, that will return the residents to their homes before September 1, and if not, to launch a broad but short war, because it is impossible to continue the current situation in the north.
Beyond the ‘reformist’ label: What will Pezeshkian’s impact be on Israel-Iran relations - analysis, by Herb Keinon in The Jerusalem Post
As crazy as it sounds, Holocaust-denying, Israel-loathing, antisemitic former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was - while in power - a gift for Israel that just kept on giving. How so? Simple, his outlandish and inflammatory statements about Israel, including openly calling for it to be “wiped off the map,” and his mocking of the Holocaust, including initiating a Holocaust cartoon contest, showcased to the world the radical nature of the Iranian regime.
Over the last 15 years, Iran has been dogged by waves of internal dissent that left some believing it could turn into a tidal wave that would sweep the ayatollahs from power.
Protests, often violent, shook the country again in 2017-2018, with severe economic hardship and corruption as the triggers. They erupted again in 2019, sparked by a hike in fuel prices.
Perhaps the most significant protests - the Women, Life, Freedom movement - broke out in 2022 when a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died in custody after being arrested for not wearing a hijab. These protests, brutally repressed, were the most widespread and sustained challenge to the ayatollahs since the 1979 revolution.
In the Iranian political system, the president has little or no sway on the nuclear issue or support of the Islamic Republic’s proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias—but he has influence in domestic matters. If Pezeshkian adopts policies that appeal to the masses, it could take momentum out of any efforts to bring down the system from within. This means that Pezeshkian’s victory makes the already long-shot possibility of a popular revolt against the regime because of domestic issues even less likely.
Iran’s New ‘Reformist’ President Is Anything But: ‘He’s a garden-variety regime guy’ loyal to the Ayatollah and his Revolutionary Guards. By Eli Lake in The Free Press
…these campaign promises mean nothing when you consider Iran’s president has little if any power inside the Islamic Republic. That belongs to the country’s ailing Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his Revolutionary Guard Corps, which directs proxy wars in the Middle East and has acquired banks, real estate, and businesses inside its own nation.
Pezeshkian has pledged loyalty to a Supreme Leader who has cracked down against demonstrators and consolidated power among Iran’s unelected Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The truth is that Iran’s reform movement has been dead for more than 20 years. It enjoyed a brief moment of influence in 1997 when Mohammad Khatami won the presidency with 69 percent of the vote.
Iranians have learned the hard way that reform is not possible so long as the country’s unelected Supreme Leader remains in power. Given that only 50 percent—at most—of Iran’s eligible voters turned out for this month’s election, it’s doubtful they will trust a new “reformist” president who pledges his fidelity to their tyrant.
Why the Hostages Should be an International Issue — Not Just an Israeli One, a Featured article on Honest Reporting
…there are hostages still being held by Hamas with 22 foreign nationalities: The United States, Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Nepal, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Tanzania, Thailand, the UK, and Ukraine.
Despite the representation of countries across the globe, the international outcry has been surprisingly and sadly muted. The ‘hostage issue’ has largely been perceived as an Israeli one, leaving the responsibility of bringing them home to the IDF and Israeli government.
In late October 2023, Russian diplomats met with a Hamas delegation in Moscow and insisted that special attention be paid to eight Russian-Israeli citizens being held hostage in Gaza. By November, three of these hostages were released, including Roni Krivoi, a sound engineer working at the Nova Festival when it was attacked (one of the few men released from captivity during this time).
Following the initial release of 17 Thai citizens, two additional Thais were released from captivity in November. A Thai Muslim group claimed its efforts were key to ensuring the release of those hostages. “We were the sole party that spoke to Hamas since the beginning of the war to ask for the release of Thais,” Lerpong Syed, President of the Thai-Iran Alumni Association told Reuters.
One significant effort occurred on April 25, when the leaders of 17 countries joined US President Joe Biden in the first official joint statement calling for the release of the hostages. Among the countries were Argentina, France, Germany, and the UK. Since this statement, however, concrete efforts have been minimal. Biden has expressed a moral commitment to bringing Israeli-American hostages home and has met with them and their families on multiple occasions, but his success in doing so has been limited. There are still eight American citizens being held hostage in Gaza, five of whom are presumed alive.
Link: Why the Hostages Should be an International Issue — Not Just an Israeli One | Honest Reporting
America’s Invisible Hostage Crisis in Gaza by John Ondrasik (lead singer of Five for Fighting) in the WSJ
I’m old enough to remember the yellow ribbons. In 1979, Islamic radicals in Iran took 52 Americans hostage, holding them for 444 days. The hostages’ plight captured the nation’s attention. Some of them became household names. Across the country people prayed for their release.
You may have heard of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, who was born in Berkeley, Calif., and lived in Richmond, Va., before emigrating to Israel with his parents at age 7. Hersh attended the Nova music festival on Oct. 7. Every American should know about Hersh and the other hostages who are still being held: Edan Alexander of Tenafly, N.J.; Sagui Dekel-Chen of Bloomfield, N.J.; Omer Neutra of Melville, N.Y.; and Keith Siegel of Chapel Hill, N.C. The nightly news should be sharing their stories, profiling their families and pressing the U.S. government to secure their release. Why isn’t America’s heartland painted yellow with ribbons tied around trees, mailboxes and light posts like in 1979. That would let the hostages and their families know they haven’t been forgotten.
President Biden rarely mentions our fellow citizens who are being held by barbaric terrorists. Their freedom doesn’t seem to be a high priority for his administration. Frankly, the plight of our hostages doesn’t seem to mean much to most Americans. It makes me wonder: Who are we anymore?
Link: America’s Invisible Hostage Crisis in Gaza | Wall Street Journal
From the Battle of Badr to Military Defeat: Changes in Hamas Perceptions of the Gaza War, by Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Bartal by The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA)
Executive Summary: The Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023 was quickly characterized by Hamas as fulfillment of a prophecy about the destruction of Israel. Hamas cast the invasion as a Palestinian version of the Battle of Badr, a battle in which a small force of Muslim believers under the command of the Prophet Muhammad succeeded in defeating a large force of Quraysh and Makkah who had opposed his prophecy. The battles of October 7 were labeled a divine victory by believers over the enemies of Allah, and many verses in this spirit were broadcast. However, more recent articles published on the Hamas website suggest that its view has undergone a transformation. Hamas has apparently shifted from extolling its “divine victory” on October 7 to admitting that it has been defeated in battle again and again. The great suffering Hamas has inflicted on the Gaza Strip has put it in the position where it must now explain to the Palestinian public why it started the war in the first place, why it did not expect a massive military response from Israel to its atrocities and attempt at genocide, and why the suffering of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip is not in vain.
The website of the Al-Palestinian Center for Information gives us a glimpse into changes that seem to have taken place in the view of Hamas operatives. Where they once gushed words of praise for the rare victory over Israel, they are now admitting their military failure in the confrontation with Israel.
Hamas predicted that Israel would not enter the Gaza Strip for ground maneuvers and that the war that would break out as a result of its invasion of Israel would end swiftly. Surely, Hamas believed, the inevitable heavy international pressure on Israel would force it to stop fighting. Hamas also expected Israel to retreat to the October 6 lines while negotiating a wholesale release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the hundreds of Israeli hostages due to Israel’s high sensitivity to human life. All these expectations were disappointed. The death toll in the Gaza Strip is rising, most Hamas battalions have been disbanded and stripped of their military and organizational capabilities, and the Gaza Strip, which until recently was considered a land liberated by jihad, is being recaptured.
Against the background of growing criticism of Hamas among parts of Palestinian society, Israel’s losses are being trumpeted on the Hamas website. Walid Abd al-Hay, in his article “Tufan Al-Aqsa to look only at their numbers only”, cites economic data such as the decrease in the value of Israeli currency, a decrease in tourism revenue, the number of abandoned settlements, high numbers of Israeli internal evacuees, and a drop in immigration to Israel by at least 50% compared to the situation before the war. The purpose of the article is clear: to raise the spirits of the Gaza population after a long, exhausting war and much suffering. Don’t just look at your own suffering and sacrifice, al-Hay is saying. Look at what we were able to do to the enemy.
The Hamas organization understands and has reconciled itself to the fact that it has been defeated militarily and the citadel of resistance in the Gaza Strip (Kala’at al-Muqawama) has fallen. After the euphoric days of October, articles appeared that tried to encourage the population and explain that their sacrifice is not in vain. Hamas is aware that the October 7 war is seen by some of the Palestinian public as a dangerous gamble that harmed the Palestinian cause – a bet that has caused the death and injury of over 118,000 Palestinians (according to the Hamas website).
Will Hamas remain the ruling party in the Gaza Strip? That depends mainly on Israeli determination, as President Biden’s latest proposal is seen by Hamas as an admission that it will indeed survive as the Strip’s governing body. Therefore, any Israeli outline for the end of the war after the IDF’s impressive military victory must include the replacement of Hamas rule by another governing body. Only that way will the Israeli military victory be translated into a political achievement.
Link: From the Battle of Badr to Military Defeat: Changes in Hamas Perceptions of the Gaza War | BESA
Iran’s Gen Z Is Still Waiting for the Revolution, by Holly Dagres in The New York Times
Young Iranians’ discontent played a critical role in the recent elections to replace Mr. Raisi, when a majority of the nation rejected the nezam — the system — and boycotted the polls. According to Iran’s official count, just 40 percent of registered voters participated in the first round of voting on June 28, the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s 45-year history. That number went up in last week’s runoff to about 50 percent, though some suspect real turnout may be even lower. Elections in Iran are neither free nor fair, and videos from across the country showed empty polling stations. In the end, the so-called reformist Masoud Pezeshkian won over the hard-liner Saeed Jalili.
For millions of Iranians, there was no acceptable choice: Both candidates were approved by the Guardian Council, a 12-member vetting body, six of whom are handpicked by Mr. Khamenei. But the breadth of the boycott appears to have put the regime on the back foot. The supreme leader took longer than usual to deliver his customary message congratulating the people of Iran for voting. The fact that so many groups — dissidents, activists, bereaved families of slain protesters among them — joined in this act of civil disobedience signaled to the regime and to the world that they don’t want an Islamic republic.
As this tech-savvy generation circumvents blocks to scroll through their social media feeds, they plainly see how aghazadehs, or children of the elites, are living their best lives on Instagram, driving the latest-model Maseratis, eating steak wrapped in gold leaf and doused in caviar, and continuing to benefit from nepotism, systemic corruption and the black market economy. This, while the average Iranian — living in a resource-rich country that funnels the people’s money to proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah — is struggling to pay the bills with high inflation. Thirty percent of Iranians now live under the poverty line.
“Young Iranians see no bright future for themselves, as the situation keeps getting worse and worse,” said Roya Piraei, a 26-year-old woman who now lives in Britain, having left Iran after her mother was shot and killed by security forces during the 2022 uprising. The current system, Ms. Piraei told me, “cannot meet the needs of the people.”
Many members of Gen Z blame their parents and grandparents for ushering in an Islamic republic after the revolution that overthrew the shah in 1979 and continuing to accept the current situation, hoping for incremental reform. They don’t see the difference, as some of the older generation do, between “principalist” politicians, known as hard-liners in the West, and “reformists” like Mr. Pezeshkian. Various memes of pink nooses festooned in flowers and morality police wearing pink bows made the point that the reformist camp offers a version of the clerical establishment that is friendlier on the surface only. To them, these men are all “footmen” of Mr. Khamenei, the ultimate decision maker on domestic and foreign policies.
To the Iranians who voted for Mr. Pezeshkian, the incoming president offers hope of some reprieve from the hard-line government of Mr. Raisi and the country’s dire economic situation. During his campaign, Mr. Pezeshkian, who in contrast to his predecessor weaves English phrases into conversation, vowed to “stand against” the morality police and online censorship rules, and called for “constructive relations” with the West by returning Iran to the nuclear negotiating table.
Link: Iran’s Gen Z Is Still Waiting for the Revolution | The New York Times
Antisemitism
We have included another article from Sapir’s quarterly publication, appropriately focused on Resilience.
You Can Graduate Any Time You Like, but You Can Never Leave: Leaving elite institutions isn’t the way to solve the campus crisis by Julia Jassey, co-founder and CEO of Jewish on Campus.
For a while, Jewish leaders figured that rampant antisemitism was limited to a small number of universities that students could avoid and activists should expose. If there was an anti-Zionist movement on an elite campus that we didn’t want to say no to, we told ourselves we could look the other way for four years before dusting ourselves off in the so-called real world. Those days are gone.
But that’s not the whole story. The immense technological change of recent years has saturated the “real world” with screens and social-media platforms and remade our reality. American life moved into a hothouse increasingly defined by the qualities of campus life: ideological intensity, information whiplash, minimal privacy. It’s no coincidence Facebook and other ubiquitous social networks were created by college students. Consciously or not, they reshaped the world on their terms.
The Jewish community has been slow to react to these changes. We’ve often responded with fear — for instance, asking which colleges we should avoid — because we haven’t yet come to terms with the fact that this is an interconnected crisis.
In other words, asking which campuses to avoid is a bit like asking which social-media platforms we should delete in response to rising vitriol; neither approach is a wide-scale or long-term solution. Donors and alumni may be able to leverage their preexisting relationships to withhold giving until changes are made, but students don’t have that power. Students make change by showing up and demanding it.
Anti-Israel protesters, if nothing else, know this and have proved flexible and fast-acting (often by breaching the rules and sometimes the law) on campus and social media alike. Part of their advantage is structural: Anti-Zionist organizations are often collectively led by diffuse groups of students. By contrast, the flagship Jewish organizations on campus are centrally run by an older generation of leaders. Student perspectives and initiatives can take a back seat, especially in fast-changing environments. Moreover, students are, by default, not pushed into leadership.
I learned that fear is not the most demoralizing response to antisemitism. Silence is.
Every day, I get to help the next generation of proudly Jewish students develop their skills with strength and determination. They’re growing up hardened to this new normal, and they’re quickly coming to define the future of the Zionist movement in America. Rather than fleeing the battle on campus and social media, students at Columbia and many other schools across the country have stayed in the fight by calling out antisemitism, showing up as proud Jews, and building networks of change.
Link: You Can Graduate Any Time You Like, but You Can Never Leave | SAPIR Journal
The Boycott Against Israel Is Spreading Into New Corners of Society, by Anat Peled and Carrie Keller-Lynn in The WSJ
Years of pro-Palestinian campaigning for a global boycott against Israel once found limited support. But in the months since the war in Gaza began, support for the isolation of Israel has grown and widened well beyond Israel’s war effort.
The shift has the potential to alter Israeli careers, hurt businesses and weigh on the economy of a country of nine million people that depends on international cooperation and support for defense, commerce and scientific research.
Lidor Madmoni, chief executive of a small Israeli defense startup, prepared for months for a June international weapons show in Paris. The conference, Eurosatory, would be a rare opportunity for his small staff to expand their business, he said. Then came an email informing him that, because of a French court decision, his company was prohibited from attending.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, formed in 2005 by Palestinian civil-society organizations, has called for years for the use of international pressure on Israel to promote its goals, which include the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and winning the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to live in Israel. But the movement found limited traction.
When the war began, new boycotts began to trickle in, mainly from humanities and social-science departments, said Netta Barak-Corren, a law professor who heads an antiboycott task force formed during the war at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The boycotts began to widen around two months ago, spreading to the hard sciences and to the university level—“universitywide movements and more importantly decisions to cut all ties with Israeli universities and Israeli academics,” she said.
Cultural Critique, a journal published by the University of Minnesota Press, told an Israeli sociologist in May that his essay was barred from consideration because, they believed, he was affiliated with an Israeli institution. The journal told the scholar that it follows BDS guidelines, “which include ‘withdrawing support from Israel’s…cultural and academic institutions.’” Cultural Critique subsequently apologized for excluding the article on the basis of the scholar’s academic affiliation and amended its website to say that submissions would be evaluated “without regard to the identity and affiliation of the author.” It invited the scholar to resubmit.
The Israeli defense-exports sector—flourishing before the war, with a record $13 billion in sales in 2023—got wind in March that it could be a target, when Chile barred Israeli companies from taking part in Latin America’s biggest aerospace fair. The French ban followed in June. In light of the war in Gaza, Canada has said it won’t sell weapons to Israel.
KLP unloaded over $68 million in shares in U.S. company Caterpillar in late June, citing a statement by the U.N. human-rights commission that said arms transfers to Israel could violate human rights and international humanitarian laws and called on 11 multinational companies—including Caterpillar—to end exports to Israel. Caterpillar didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Link: The Boycott Against Israel Spreads Into New Corners of Society | Wall Street Journal
Meta to remove posts targeting 'Zionists' when aiming at Jews, Israelis, by Michael Starr in Jerusalem Post
Meta will remove content targeting Zionists when used to refer to Jews and Israelis and not the political movement, the social media conglomerate’s Policy Forum announced on Tuesday.
Examples of content violating community standards may include claims about Zionists controlling the world or media, dehumanizing comparisons to animals, and denial of existence.
Previously Meta had treated the use of the term “Zionist” as a hate speech violation more narrowly when context made it clear that Jews or Israelis were the target, or when antisemitic imagery was used.
One issue that Meta Policy Forum is still deliberating on is the comparison of Zionists to criminals. Facebook, Instagram, and Threads prohibit equivocation between groups with “protected characteristics” and criminality.
“We find that some criminal comparisons that refer to protected characteristics are using those characteristics as shorthand to refer to governments, soldiers, or other specific groups. Such speech is generally political rather than hateful,” said the forum.
In May, Meta removed a Thread post calling all Israelis criminals, and another Facebook post that called all Americans and Russians criminals.
Link: Meta to remove posts targeting ‘Zionists’ when aiming at Jews, Israelis | Jerusalem Post